I am genuinely puzzled by the Texas abortion law currently in front of the Supreme Court.
Suppose it was aimed at some other constitutional right. What if California made it illegal to engage in vaccine denialism? The state has plenty of legitimate interest in this, and the spread of a deadly virus is colorably an act of violence, which brings Near v. Minnesota into play.
But instead of the state enforcing the ban, citizens were allowed to sue deniers for $10,000 in statutory damages.
Would anyone give this the time of day? Or would it be instantly laughed out of court?
What am I missing? Why is this whole thing being taken seriously?
I thought it was interesting that Brett Kavanaugh of all people brought up an example like your vaccine denialism, only one even more triggering to the right: he asked whether a state could make AR-15s illegal and let citizens sue anyone who helped someone acquire one. The Texas AG suggested that Congress could pass legislation protecting that right, and Kagan asked why a right should need legislation to protect it.
It's only interesting as far as Brett Kavanaugh has as sharp a legal mind as I do. Lots of us figured out the gun example, because that is an example that follows the same logic as the abortion law: it does not go after the person who is excercising their constitutional right, but anyone who facilitates the exercise of that right.
He brought it up because that is exactly what will start to be put forward in blue states if this law stands, and he needs the cover of protecting gun rights if he's going to go after this law.
The point, Kevin, is to needle, shame, and harass women who want abortions. That is the very point. If it will save the life of the unborn from their murderous mothers, I think it would be completely worth it!
I think the problem is that norms shift over time. 10 years ago, maybe this gets laughed out of court, but a few years of activist conservative judges moves the court to the right and suddenly what was crazy 10 years ago requires some chin-stroking.
I also think we need to give up on the nonsense that this has ever been about calling balls and strikes when judges can't agree on the size of the strike zone.
Last point, it strikes me that the national Democratic party is kind of complacent. It's not just about winning senate seats or congressional seats, it's about the fact that a politician's career goes from City Council > Mayor > County whatever > state seat of some sort > national level. Time to start building the benches.
The Gerrymander's make it hard but D's have got to seriously cowboy up and get serious. Too many rubber knives being brought to a fight that has AK's.
Complacent?
Shrillary Climpton told us the SCROTUS was on the ballot in 2016, & leftist hardliners like you told her & the national Institutional Democrat Party that you need a better reason than that to not want Trump to win.
Well the party apparently needed a better reason than that to push a candidate who was not hated enough to lose.
Ya got me, I'm a diehard lefty.
I do pretty much hate R's at the national level, and actually, they aren't any better in California either. The thing that kills me the most is, for some reason, people keep looking at them as serious leaders on pretty much anything.
The only thing that pisses me off more than the geniuses on the R side is that the D side is dumber than they are apparently.
Maybe getting stomped tonight will be the wake up call they need. We don't need another 4-years of anything resembling Trump, and we're probably gonna get it.
"The only thing that pisses me off more than the geniuses on the R side is that the D side is dumber than they are apparently."
It's possible that you are not clearly communicating through this format, or I might simply be misunderstanding you.
But, are you in fact asserting that reality-based Democrats who you may disagree with (Pelosi? Biden? the Clintons? the Obamas? Schumer?) are actually "dumber" than the psychotic and delusional Republican party leading attacks on the Capital building, denying climate change, and openly campaigning against Covid vaccines?
Because, if that is your position, well, you're a moron.
Yes.
He wanted a showdown of Jake Angeli & the Q*Team against the Nevada Berner Chairthrowers
Populism uber Alles.
Well here’s the thing, how are any R’s even winning elections since they went full retard? It’s not all gerrymanders and dirty tricks.
Populist drugs dependent losers of the working class, be their narcotic of choice ayahuasca & cannabis (the left) or Krylon & methamphetamine (the right), are so brain addled they can't tell & really don't care when they are being lied to. Whether it's that Grand Wazir of the Ku Klux Klan Hillary Diane Rodham wrote the 1994 Crime Bill or that Democrat Teachers Unions in the Commonwealth of Virginia are working hand in glove with the Neoliberal identitarian hegemony of the party to demonize white students into a self-perpetuating genocide of mass suicide in order to hasten the Great Replacement, our nation's populists will swallow the most obvious lies then vote for the liars who told them.
The R's are winning elections because their rabidness is getting a lot of other rabid people off their couch. The D's just can't work themselves up to mail in their vote, except in the extreme circumstance of "oh my god, not four more years of this shithead".
"Would anyone give this the time of day?" NO.
"Or would it be instantly laughed out of court?" YES.
"What am I missing? Why is this whole thing being taken seriously?" IOKIYAR.
It wouldn't be, since default judgments mean you have to pay a lawyer to defend you.
And yeah, why didn't it? Because Republicans think it's okay for private citizens and cops to violate rights.
"What am I missing? Why is this whole thing being taken seriously?"
I assume this is a rhetorical question.
This was specifically addressed in court arguments today.
Kavanaugh asked the Texas lawyer if the same type of law could be used to allow citizens to sue anyone buying an AR-15 for one million and courts could not stop it pre enforcement. And the Texas lawyer agreed that the federal courts could not stop it pre enforcement UNLESS the court changes their existing rules on these types of procedural issues.
Basically the lawyer for the state of Texas AGREED that the left wing states could use this same sort of loophole /flaw in court procedures to make things difficult for someone exercising 2nd amendment rights too.
I would note that Kavanaugh asked re suing for buying an AR-15, not just any old gun . Trying to allow anyone to sue for buying any gun just would not work with this court or any Supreme Court which had any sort of respect for the constitution.
Why ? Because under current rules the courts can still of course strike it down post enforcement. So , if the person who could be sued is totally confident that they would eventually win, the law has little deterrent effect . In order to be a deterrent, there has to be at least some small hope that the law itself will be upheld on final review. You need to have at least some sort of viable argument that the law is constitutional.
A law making buying a gun illegal would not work as conservatives could just laugh at it and ignore it knowing they would win any court case with actual enforcement.
The Texas law , by not banning all abortions, attempts to leave enough doubt in abortion providers minds that the law will be upheld that it is enough of a deterrent.
The answer by the Texas lawyer is basically inviting the court to change their procedures to stop these tactics on either side. As I have said , I think a hidden reason of many pushing this bill was not abortion but trying to preemptively get the rules changed before liberals used the same idea for things like guns .
And conceptually, this is not that different than the biden administration tweaking their reversal of the remain in Mexico policy while knowing it still will not hold up legally in the end but will buy time before the courts rule on it. Or national restraining orders by ideological judges that are clearly doa at Supreme court but exist until the Supreme Court can rule. Or even all the election fraud cases that never were ruled on due to standing issues.
Yeah, 'liberals' were just about to pursue that strategy for the second amendment. it was pre-emptive defense, I tells ya.
Go away, foolish troll.
This is stupid on it's face, but very smart in its approach. Everyone is taking it seriously because no one has had the gall to try this before.
The issue isn't whether or not it's constitutional w/r/t abortion. The issue is whether it avoid judicial review because it is not a "state (IE Govt) action" and the constitution, with some exceptions, protects against the government not private citizens.
The vaccine / 2nd amendment / religion arguments are all valid. The issue is this is really (to my understanding) a novel approach that hasn’t been tested. Commons sense says it should fail, but common sense doesn’t always prevail.
It does show how narcissistic Texas is. If this succeeds, it brings constitutional rights to state level. California may ban guns (or restrict them) – but that won’t happen in Texas. So, Texas will be able to stop abortion, but the other rights they like will not lose protection in Taxes or any GOP led states.
It’s unclear to me, given the approach, how legislation in congress would move the needle here, as was argued by the Texas AG and some of the commenters. Assuming that to be true, though, it means that Texas is betting more people in Congress would vote to strop abortion than would vote to limit the 2nd amendment.
As I understand the proceedings, they concern who has standing to challenge the law in the absence of anyone actually having been sued under it. In the normal course of events, someone would sue an abortion provider, the abortion provider would argue the law was invalid, and the losing party would then commence a series of appeals that would end up in the Supreme Court in three or four years time. Not unnaturally, pro-abortion groups want to pre-empt that process by declaring the law invalid before people start getting sued, but it's not altogether clear who can bring such an action.
It's a troll.
Also, a stealth attack on the Clean Water Act. No, the laws are no where near the same, but false equivalency abounds.
False equivalence paired with a studied inablity to understand basic English. A poerful combination in today's G.O.P. Strike that -- in the G.O.P. of any era.
It is being taken seriously because abortion. Please don't tell me you don't know that. Abortion and the Second Amendment will always generate maximalist positions from which you can't be seen as retreating.
What is most disturbing is that apparently three justices don't appear to have any particular problem with a state nullifying the Constitution within its borders. It is fucking 1830 all over again. They not only want to roll back the 20th century, but also pretty much of the 19th as well.
I'm beginning to think we're going to have to start calling over-privileged white men "Kevins" to go with "Karens."
You're right, it's being taken seriously because it has already prevented many Texas women from exercising a protected constitutional right (until the religious zealots on the SCOTUS overturn Roe v. Wade). And it's forced others to go outside the state at considerable expense to get the care they need.
The Republican fascists are learning a new trick to help tyrannize the country. Pass an obviously unconstitutional law and have the SCOTUS let it take effect until some future date. That way it can cause pain, suffering, and havoc while the Court avoids its responsibility.
Bu they can't let it stand, since it would open the door for similar citizen vigilante laws with no judicial review. And those laws could attack any constitutional right. So, the radicals on the Right can't let this stand unless they are willing to be more blatantly hypocritical than anyone has ever been before. In other words, what should be a 9-0 decision (with 7-9 opinions) probably won't be, because we've already seen there is no problem with appalling hypocrisy for today's Republicans. I'm going to make sure I'm sitting down when they announce this decision.
What Fascism??? I thought that was Democrats, who are the fascists??
OK Time Travelling Jonah Goldberg from the Tear 2010.
I'm curious how you think that 9-0 decision would work.
For example, who do you think the Supreme Court would enjoin from enforcing the law?
How exactly are you going to collect your 10K without the state, via it’s judicial arm, a) ruling that you have the right to 10k, b) enforcing that right via legal order.
Really, the idea that there are no state actors to enjoin is simple folderol.
So you want to enjoin the judges.
The problem is that judges who rule on a dispute are not considered parties to that dispute. For example, which lawyer in this process do you think represents the Texas judges?
SB 8 is really quite insidious and it should be a problem for people on the right as well as the left because it could just as easily make "hate speech" the cause of action. But it is designed to evade judicial review.
I don't like that despite the fact that I probably have the opposite political leanings as you do. I'm not religious and don't care too much about Roe v Wade, although I think that ruling did violence to the Constitution, but SB8 is not how it should be dealt with.
The Supreme Court needs to find a way to address this, but it is not simple at all.
That's ridiculous. The Supreme Court enjoins judges from making rulings all the time.
It's being taken seriously because of how your supreme court is reacting to it.
This law is, as plenty observe, outrageous and a childish effort at avoiding your constitution - any manifestation of it before your supreme court ought be destroyed instantly.
With that not seeming assured it is a litmus test of how politically skewed the court is - which is a serious matter.
Poop
From my granddaughter ….
It's not necessary to create an analogy.
Voting to support the TX law is to delegitimize the Constitution -- if something that is blatantly unconstitutional cannot be reviewed or enjoined, there is no point to having a Constitution.
Anyone on SCOTUS who votes to support TX should resign immediately. There is no point to having a jurist who has voted to peremptorily remove their power of review.
"Anyone on SCOTUS who votes to support TX should resign immediately."
I'm sorry, I can't stop laughing. A Republican radical resign? That's rich.
Thomas has had the most egregious conflicts of interest and not recused himself from those cases. He's an example for the others. Oh, and the judicial ethical code doesn't apply to SCOTUS justices. Because, well, just because.
Because it fits into Alito and Gorsuch's warped legal theories.
Surprised that McC is struggling and outside a mail surprise, may lose. I really have not paid attention to it.....so the Virginia Gov page praises that blm Kendi chick. Progtards refuse to pass infrastructure in the summer, then come out with a bloated BBB that angered Biden, pissed off moderates and McC made a mess of his campaign.....I read the stuff, he was bad.
Then Biden won't use the national guard to stop the shortages.
Time to dump progtards that care more about illegal immigrants than poor white workers.
Rofl. Spades thinks Sinema and Manchin are Progtards.
By the way, Trump is a godsdamn Ashkenazi shithole. 3/4 of his heritage comes from that, lying and hiding behind the "Scottish" part.
His supporters know that. He is just the "jew" vehicle for a Zionist dictatorship.
The problem here is that some smart lawyers in Texas have figured out how to create a law that blatantly prevents people from exercising a constitutional right while making it virtually immune from judicial review.
I do not think that any of the justices are happy with this - even those that want to overturn Roe v. Wade do not want to eliminate judicial review. But figuring out how to block it is a real puzzle.
Remember - the Supreme Court does not actually rule that laws are unconstitutional. It also does not issue advisory opinions (ie. that any suit under SB 8 would be thrown out once it reaches the Supreme Court). So how, exactly, do they block this? They can issue a restraining order, but who do they restrain?
I think I agree with Kevin's point here. The idea that you can create a law that can't be subjected to judicial review is ridiculous.
I wonder if some twisted Texan antiquarian is busy drafting an ant-abortion law hat will go a step further and revive the Roman scheme of proscription, This gave legal immunity against prosecution to anyone who killed the prosrribee, Since rich Romans tended to have a lot of enemies, this job creation scheme for assassins was a cheap and efficient way of disposing of adversaries.
It looks like this is not about abortion. It is a way to blow up the Constitution.
https://www.vox.com/2021/10/9/22717731/texas-abortion-ban-sb8-circuit-court-appeal
It was laughed out of court. Unfortunately, you can appeal that. And it takes time for the appeal to be heard.
Hmmm The texas law deputizes citizens thus turning them into government agents...